Israel’s national security minister has lashed out at supermodel Bella Hadid for criticising his recent remarks about Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
In an interview earlier this week with Israel’s Channel 12 following two deadly Palestinian attacks against Israelis in the occupied territory, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir argued that his right to freedom of movement as a Jewish settler outweighs the same right for Palestinians.
“My right, the right of my wife and my children to move around Judea and Samaria, is more important than freedom of movement for the Arabs,” Mr Ben-Gvir said, using the biblical name for the West Bank. “The right to life comes before freedom of movement.”
Addressing Mohammad Magadli, a well-known Israeli-Arab television host who was in the studio, Mr Ben-Gvir added: “Sorry, Mohammad. But that’s the reality.”
His statement drew widespread criticism as commentators seized on it as proof of allegations that Israel was turning into an apartheid system that seeks to maintain Jewish hegemony from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
Protesters gathered outside Mr Ben-Gvir’s home in a West Bank settlement to condemn his remarks. The catchphrase “Sorry, Mohammad” became meme fodder for social media as critics posted it alongside videos of Israeli violence against Palestinians.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended Mr Ben-Gvir’s comments in a statement on Friday night, saying that Israel “allows maximum freedom of movement” in the West Bank.
Palestinian militants, Mr Netanyahu said, “take advantage of this freedom of movement to murder Israeli women, children, and families by ambushing them at certain points on different routes”.
“This is what minister Ben-Gvir meant when he said ‘the right to life precedes freedom of movement,” Mr Netanyahu added.
There are at least 645 physical barriers restricting Palestinian movement in the West Bank, according to UN monitors. Over half the barriers, the agency says, have a “severe impact on Palestinians” by preventing access to city centres, major roads, farmland, and other services.
Some 30 people have been killed by Palestinian attacks against Israelis since the start of this year, according to a tally by The Associated Press. Nearly 180 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank during that time, most of whom Israel says were militants.
Hadid, a world-famous supermodel and social media influencer whose father is Palestinian, shared an excerpt from Mr Ben-Gvir’s interview with her 59.5 million followers on Instagram on Thursday, writing: “In no place, no time, especially in 2023 should one life be more valuable than another’s. Especially simply because of their ethnicity, culture or pure hatred.”
She also posted a video from leading Israeli rights group B’Tselem showing Israeli soldiers in the southern West Bank city of Hebron telling a resident that Palestinians are not permitted to walk on a certain street because it is reserved for Jews. “Does this remind anyone of anything?” she wrote.
Mr Ben-Gvir responded angrily to Hadid’s post.
“I invite you to Kiryat Arba, to see how we live here, how every day, Jews who have done nothing wrong to anyone in their lives are murdered here,” he wrote on Twitter, now rebranded as X.
Mr Ben-Gvir lives in the settlement of Kiryat Arba near Hebron, the largest Palestinian city.
Earlier this week, Palestinian gunmen opened fire on an Israeli car near Hebron, killing an Israeli woman and seriously wounding the driver. That attack came just days after a Palestinian shooting attack killed an Israeli father and son in the northern Palestinian town of Hawara.
Mr Ben-Gvir acknowledged the backlash but doubled down on his original statement.
“So yes, the right of me and my fellow Jews to travel and return home safely on the roads of Judea and Samaria outweighs the right of terrorists who throw stones at us and kill us,” he wrote.
Mr Ben-Gvir has been convicted in the past of inciting racism and of supporting a terrorist organisation. He was known as an admirer of rabbi Meir Kahane, who was banned from Israel’s parliament and whose Kach party was branded a terrorist group by the United States before he was assassinated in New York in 1990.
Kach wanted to strip Arab Israelis of their citizenship, segregate Israeli public spaces, and ban marriages between Jews and non-Jews.
Before joining politics, Mr Ben-Gvir hung a portrait in his living room of a Jewish man who shot dead 29 Palestinians in the West Bank in 1994.
Mr Ben-Gvir now wields significant power as Israel’s national security minister overseeing its police force in Mr Netanyahu’s government.
